This invention relates to vehicle door hinges, and more particularly to a double pivot recessed hinge assembly for readily moving a door between closed, intermediate hold-open, and full hold-open positions in a self-latching and self-unlatching uninterrupted manner.
Various double pivot hinge arrangements have been patented for vehicle doors operative to position the doors in various hold-open positions. An example of one such double pivot hinge arrangement is shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,719,665 issued Jan. 19, 1988 to Bell. The Bell patent discloses a double pivot hinge providing first and second latch means alternately movable between latched, and unlatched positions to either latch the hinge arm to the door mounted hinge butt for movement of the door and hinge arms as a unit to the 90 degree open position or to latch the hinge arm to the vehicle mounted hinge butt for movement of the door relative to the hinge arm between 90 degree and 180 degree open positions. A detent means detents the first latch means in unlatched position during movement of the door between 90 and 180 degree open positions. The detent means is automatically released as the door moves from the 180 position to a position immediately adjacent the 90 degree open position to permit uninterrupted closing movement of the door.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,655,499 issued Apr. 7, 1987, to Piper entitled Door Hinge For Vehicle discloses a hinge mechanism connecting the vehicle door to the door frame. The hinge mechanism includes a bracket member having first and second ends and a first support bracket for supporting the first end from a door frame by a pin member and a second support bracket for supporting the second end from a door by a second pin member. The invention is characterized by including a hinge latching mechanism for reversibly latching one of the first and second ends of the bracket member from pivoting movement relative to the respective one of the first and second support brackets.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,928,350 issued May 29, 1990, to Morgan entitled Multiple Axis Hidden Hinge discloses a hinge construction of two mounting plates and a substantially U-shaped center link which connects the axes of pivot of the two plates. The link and plates contain stop mechanisms which determine their respective limits of pivot. In addition, the hinge contains a means for restraining the rotation of only one of the mounting plates around its corresponding link arm to insure a pattern of motion that is always consistent, and allows for the hinge to be mounted with a very narrow gap between the members being joined.